Infographic

Information graphics (short: infographics ) are the visual representation of the overall context in an illustration.

Infographic of the subway line network in Munich

In addition to the two classic disciplines of text and photo journalism , it is an independent journalistic form of presentation that prepares information visually .

Infographics are used exclusively in visual media, primarily in print media such as newspapers , magazines or magazines, as well as on television . They also play a major role in school and textbooks .

Infographics strive to convey facts as efficiently as possible and place great emphasis on clarity, accuracy and vividness. In humans, visual perception comes first in information intake. Texts must first be understood and then classified according to their content. Information graphics have advantages here if they serve the human brain with factual information in a prepared form. This is the strength of infographics and their advantage over other journalistic disciplines. A well-known proverb sums this up very easily: A picture is worth a thousand words . Opinions, ratings and classifications have no place in an infographic. They belong in a text as well as describing feelings. The representation of faces or people, actions and complex situations are illustrated in this genre, landscapes or art objects, on the other hand, can also be represented photographically.

Methods

Contents are always clearly definable factual information such as series of numbers, proportions, location, structure and participation of organizations or corporations, decision-making processes, technical, biological or chemical functioning, arrangement of parts or layers and the like. The most important infographic elements are diagrams such as column , bar , circle or curve diagrams , geographical thematic maps or plans of all kinds (e.g. road map or history map ), organizational charts and structure diagrams or schematic representations such as exploded views (e.g. Cross-sections to illustrate the functionality of an internal combustion engine or to represent rock layers ).

history

Minard's graphic about Napoleon's Russian campaign

The question of how far z. For example, early cave drawings like the one in Altamira, Spain , could be considered the nucleus of infographics. Not only could different animal species have been depicted there, but also hunting techniques , hunting times , locations of certain herds, etc.

The year 1786 is often cited as the founding year of modern infographics, when William Playfair published his Commercial and Political Atlas , which contains numerous diagrams. A graphical generalization of qualitative facts and contents has historically developed from the baroque frontispiece or cover picture and thematic cartography , i.e. from panoramas and comparable cartographic imaging processes that summarize the content of a treatise or a book, a picture or map work in an overall view. Therefore, both orientation plans for parks, buildings and exhibitions as well as the machine-generated sitemaps of websites belong to the information graphics. So if we understand a map as an information graphic, perhaps even as a super symbol, the name Carl Ritter as the founder of general geography should be emphasized. As a colleague of Alexander von Humboldt in the Military Academy, later in the Academy of Sciences and Humboldt University, he can be seen as one of the forefathers of comprehensible, repeatable, reliable and faithful information graphics.

As a well-known graphic designers in professional circles also applies the Frenchman Charles Joseph Minard , of 1869 the Russian campaign Napoleon 1812 - 1813 showed. His infographic shows the schematic route to Moscow , the decrease in troop strength and a sequence of temperatures to which the soldiers were exposed during the retreat in winter. The Irish engineer Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey presented the energy flows in a steam engine in a similar way . This diagram form, which is known today as the Sankey diagram, was named after him .

The broad assertion in the mass media, on the other hand, came primarily from the United States . The USA Today newspaper in particular relied heavily on infographic visualization and was very successful with it. Infographics experienced there e.g. B. a boom during the Second Gulf War . Since almost no pictures were available, troop movements, front lines, gains or losses in terrain or the mode of operation of weapons were conveyed to American readers and television viewers by means of infographics. In Germany, the news magazine Focus played an important role in the distribution of infographics.

The systematic research into quantitative information graphics was mainly carried out by Edward Tufte from 1983 onwards .

job profile

Infographics have either studied design or journalism, or trained as a media designer or cartographer; less often they come from art universities or colleges of fine arts . Even career changers have a chance with the appropriate creativity and journalistic skills.

Newspapers, magazines or magazines in Germany with their own infographic section are e.g. B. image, focus and star . Smaller newspapers and magazines now also employ freelance or permanent infographics for their own production.

News agencies also have their own infographic departments. For example, bought dpa the Cartography Service GmbH ; it later traded as GLOBUS Infografik GmbH and today as dpa-infografik GmbH.

Creation

Infographics are usually created using vector graphics programs such as B. CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator created. 3D computer graphics programs are increasingly used. However, these are less suitable for up-to-date infographics, since creating the infographics is considerably more time-consuming than with vector programs. Pixel programs such as B. Adobe Photoshop , are usually only used within the infographic as an additional instrument to add value to the infographic. If the static infographic is to be animated, Adobe After Effects or Adobe Flash can be used for this. Interactive infographics can be implemented using web standards (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, SVG). Well-known techniques are Google Chart Tools, the JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit and D3.js. If it is a very comprehensive or large infographic that contains a lot of data and statistics, there is the option of splitting the data and converting the static graphic into a slideshow. PowerPoint or Gif animations are suitable for this.

literature

Heiner Benking: A look back at the development in the field of "Infographics" from 1981–1988: http://benking.de/infographics/
Catherine Bouchon: Infographics. Use, design and communication of information . Werner Hülsbusch Verlag, Boizenburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-940317-07-0
Klaus Forster, Sabine Stiemerling, Thomas Knieper: Knowledge transfer through animated infographics. An experiment . In: Caja Thimm (ed.): Network education. Teaching and learning with online media in science and business . (= Series of Bonn contributions to media studies, vol. 5). Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2005, ISBN 3-631-52108-1 , pp. 75-100
Angela Jansen, Wolfgang Scharfe: Handbook of the infographic. Visual information in journalism, advertising and public relations . Springer, Berlin a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-540-64919-0
Thomas Knieper: Infographics. The visual information potential of the daily newspaper . (= Series of media scripts; vol. 23). R. Fischer, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-88927-157-X (short version of a dissertation, Univ. Munich 1994)
Martin Liebig: The infographic . (= Practical journalism; Volume 39). UVK, Konstanz 1999, ISBN 3-89669-251-8
Hanno Sprissler: Designing infographics, techniques, tips and tricks . Springer, Berlin a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-540-65640-5
Alexander Vögtli, Beat Ernst: Scientific images. A picture review . Schwabe, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-7965-2313-7
Sandra Rendgen, Julius Wiedemann: Information Graphics . Taschen, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-8365-2879-5
Wibke Weber, Michael Burmester, Ralph Tille: Interactive infographics . Springer Vieweg, Berlin, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-15452-2
Raimar Heber: Infographic - Telling good stories with complex data . Rheinwerk Verlag, Bonn, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8362-3193-0